You are forgetting a key point: you *agreed* to that EULA, and in some countries, that is *binding*, as in some countries, even an oral contract is binding. It might be called an EULA, but in the end it's just a contract.

If my neighbour and I come to a contractual agreement that he may build a part of his shed on my land, and in return he needs to wear an orange hat every 3rd sunday of the month, then I can take legal action if he doesn't-- because we both *agreed* to that contract.

Same for me and Apple. I installed Tiger. Apple allows me to run Tiger, and in return I can only install it on Apple's hardware (=wearing an orange hat on every 3rd sunday of the month). It's exactly the same, just different terms.

According to you, you cannot enforce the contract you agreed to. Then how is the FSF goign to enforce the GPL? The GPL is just a license, like Apple's, and the GPL is supposed to be enforcable. That's why I was referring to hippocracy: those boys screaming that this whole OSX-cracked thing is good for freedom, on the other hand squeal death and decay when someone violates the GPL, which in effect is the exact same thing as these guys cracking OSX are doing.

I agree with you in principle Thom. And I want to disagree with you hard, but at then end of the day I want Apple to give a little piracy up, but I can't.

You are right. It's a contract. You agree to it, and that's that. Apple better not fight me on dual-booting windows in 2007 though, and I want a damn, fast machine as a option too. Please Apple, give me a desktop replacement machine PLEASE!.

The reason the EULA is not enforceable is that if you are taken to court, the court will rule that it is anti-competitive and so unenforceable. The exact same thing would happen if you bought a copy of MS Office, ran it on Crossover Office, and MS sued or tried to restrain you on the grounds that it was contrary to the EULA and had to be run only on Windows. Will not be enforceable. I do not know about other licenses, Open Source and so on, they are a different issue. This would be an attempt to restrain post sale use by contract, and it will not fly in Europe. They can of course make it technically impossible to do certain things with it. Beyond a certain point, that too is risky, if it is done solely to restrain competition. But that is the only way. This really is the state of competition law in the EC. Think it through, and you will see why. But like it or not, that is how it is.

You're totally not seeing the point: you *agreed*, willingly, without being forced, without a gun put to your head, to *not* run OS X on non-Apple hardware. *That* is a contractual agreement, and therefor, very much enforcable.

According to you, violating the GPL poses no problems. Don't forget: the GPL is just as much an EULA as Apple's or Microsoft's. According to your logic, no contract can be enforced!

"The exact same thing would happen if you bought a copy of MS Office, ran it on Crossover Office, and MS sued or tried to restrain you on the grounds that it was contrary to the EULA and had to be run only on Windows."

There's a difference. Microsoft can't dictate how the software isused or how its used in combination with other software as long as you bought a license for that hardware.

On the other hand, Apple can dictate which hardware their OS is installed. The only reason why that is, is because they own the platform. To many of you are applying PC dynamics to Apple gear. The PC marketplace is a collection of multiple parts to make up a whole. As far as Apple's solution is concerned, the software is part of the hardware.... meaning, its part of the complete solution. They've priced their product in such a way that you can only buy OS X for its low price as long as you also buy hardware from Apple.

According to you, you cannot enforce the contract you agreed to. Then how is the FSF goign to enforce the GPL? The GPL is just a license, like Apple's, and the GPL is supposed to be enforcable.

The usual argument I see against this is that you don't have to agree to the GPL. You are welcome to use GPL'd software in any way copyright law already allows, because the GPL only offers extra freedom. Apple's license OTOH imposes additional restrictions.

I don't know nearly enough about copyright law in any country to say if this is really true anywhere, especially considering the restrictions on merely linking against GPL'd libraries, though.

Same for me and Apple. I installed Tiger. Apple allows me to run Tiger, and in return I can only install it on Apple's hardware (=wearing an orange hat on every 3rd sunday of the month). It's exactly the same, just different terms.

I agree, and think that's the point everyone overlooks in this mad rush to install OS X on vanilla hardware.

If you purchase a dell or hp system, for example, the MS Windows OEM license states that the software is licensed for that machine only. The user is not entitled to crack the recovery disk to install the software on another machine, regardless of how morally right they feel they are. It is simply and uneqivocably against the law.

Unless Apple significantly shifts gears and opens up OS X, the only way to obtain a legitimate copy of OS X for x86 will be to purchase a Mactel. And that license will be tied to that machine. No amount of self-righteous indignation will change the fact that users will not legally be able to hack or modify the OS to work on another machine. Anyone that does is breaking the law.

And for the naysayers, it's not an anti-competitive practise, MS has been doing it for years and with all the suits they've faced that hasn't been one of them. If hardware subsidizes the cost of the software, then the vendor is entirely entitled to restrictive licensing. Why shouldn't they be?

Personally, I don't use OS X or own a Mac, nor do I see any incentive to buy one in the future, the cost-benefit analysis simply does not pay off for me. But I do have a degree of respect for Apple's business strategy because it's paid off for them. They will never become a dominant player in either the consumer or the enterprise space (at least in the immediate future), and I don't seriously believe they want to be, it wouldn't make business sense. Their approach allows them to hold their marketshare with incremental growth and remain profitable. Opening up the OS to mass-marketers would likely only serve to decrease their profitability and risk diminishing the actual value of their brand name, and say whatever you want about Microsoft, being directly in their crosshairs is not a good place to be since they are never more dangerous (or even innovative) than when directly threatened. Better to stick at what you can do competently and remain an annoyance, rather than take them head on.

"And for the naysayers, it's not an anti-competitive practise, MS has been doing it for years"

No one worth their salt was calling Microsoft anticompetative for restricting the OS sale to one computer. They were calling MS anticompetative because of the exclusionary contracts with PC OEMS which restricted fair competition.

"The user is not entitled to crack the recovery disk to install the software on another machine, regardless of how morally right they feel they are. It is simply and uneqivocably against the law. "

What I'm telling you, very seriously, is that if you move your installation to another computer, no court in the EC is going to penalise you, or support your vendor if he tries to penalise you. The reason is, no EC court is going to enforce post sale restraints. Any more than they are going to penalise you if you take your Office installation off your Windows machine, and move it to your Linux machine under Wine. If you dispute this, tell me a case where post sales restraints have been upheld by an EC court. There are none. They will of course penalise you if you make multiple copies. That's different. That isn't a post sales restraint.

According to you, you cannot enforce the contract you agreed to. Then how is the FSF goign to enforce the GPL? The GPL is just a license, like Apple's, and the GPL is supposed to be enforcable.

The GPL is a copyright license including only clauses within the power of a copyright license. Apple's EULA is a copyright license including clauses not within the power of a copyright license, rather, only within the power of a general contract. Since contracts require agreement by both parties, if there is no agreement, there is no contract. And there is no agreement. There is no signature, and while verbal contracts are fairly difficult to prove, there isn't even one of those!

The GPL is a copyright license including only clauses within the power of a copyright license. Apple's EULA is a copyright license including clauses not within the power of a copyright license, rather, only within the power of a general contract.

Rayiner, while most of what everyone else said against what apple has done has so far been rather silly ("freedom", tsk), you have made the only logical and compelling argument so far.

I will talk about the legalities later, but c'mon you have to admit, what apple so far has done is only to protect their business plan. You can argue wether its a silly plan (though financially, apple's other plans have been pretty rewarding), but it's not hurting anyone. They spent alot of money into researching and developing their solutions (hardware and software), they should be allowed to recoup and profit from it, right? Legalities aside, no one is forcing anyone to buy apple stuff, apple is a business and they need to make money off their inventions and innovations. Apple can afford to sell it cheaper (relative to cost of developing it) due to the fact that apple computers come along with it. We shouldn't deny them of their freedom to choose this line of business plan.

Now, on to the legalities. Text of interest in bold ...

The Copyright Act of 1976, defines four factors to consider when deciding if the copying of a copyrighted work is fair and allowable without the consent of the copyright holder (17 U.S.C. § 107)

Notwithstanding the provisions of sections 106 and 106A, the fair use of a copyrighted work, including such use by reproduction in copies or phonorecords or by any other means specified by that section, for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching (including multiple copies for classroom use), scholarship, or research, is not an infringement of copyright. In determining whether the use made of a work in any particular case is a fair use the factors to be considered shall include—

1. the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
2. the nature of the copyrighted work;
3. the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and 4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.

The fact that a work is unpublished shall not itself bar a finding of fair use if such finding is made upon consideration of all the above factors.

Under the Fair Use doctrine of copyright laws, you can argue that apple has the right (thus enforceble under the same law as the liscence) to disallow any use of of its copyrighted work (OSX) that would alter the market and/or value of the product. Apple certainly did not intend the market to be beige boxes. Plus they can certainly argue that the value of the product would certainly change if they allowed it to be installed in other computers besides theirs.

Well, I am no lawyer (but neither are you), but I am sure of one thing: in no country can you sign a contract that would cause an illegal action. So, even if we were to accept your point that one can, in fact "agree to an EULA", if in a country such agreement is illegal (like, for example, in Europe, where no wendor can dictate what hardware you can and can not run your software on), then the agreement to the EULA is invalid.

It's that simple. You may not like it (I wouldn't know why???), but this is really clearcut.